Live Nation stock falls after FTC sues over ticket resale practices

Investing.com -- Live Nation Entertainment (NYSE:LYV) stock fell 3% on Thursday after the Federal Trade Commission and seven states filed a lawsuit against the company and its Ticketmaster subsidiary over alleged deceptive ticket resale practices.

The lawsuit accuses Live Nation and Ticketmaster of coordinating with ticket brokers to harvest millions of dollars worth of tickets in the primary market, which are then resold at substantial markups in the secondary market. This practice allegedly forces consumers to pay significantly more than face value for tickets.

According to the FTC’s complaint, Ticketmaster has been aware that brokers routinely bypass security measures by creating thousands of accounts and using proxy IP addresses to purchase event tickets beyond stated limits. The complaint alleges that the company "turns a blind eye as a matter of policy" to these violations, with internal reviews showing that just five brokers controlled over 6,300 Ticketmaster accounts and possessed more than 246,000 concert tickets to nearly 2,600 events.

The regulatory body also accused Ticketmaster of engaging in bait-and-switch pricing by advertising lower ticket prices than what consumers ultimately pay after fees and markups are added. These fees, which can reach as high as 44% of the ticket cost, totaled $16.4 billion from 2019 to 2024, according to the FTC.

Ticketmaster is the dominant provider of tickets for concerts, controlling approximately 80% or more of major concert venues’ primary ticketing, with a growing share of the secondary market. The FTC noted that consumers spent more than $82.6 billion purchasing tickets from Ticketmaster between 2019 and 2024.

The lawsuit seeks civil penalties against Ticketmaster and additional monetary relief as determined by the court. The complaint was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.

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